How Social Robots Can Facilitate Teaching Quality--Findings from an Explorative Interview Study

Social robots are at the beginning of their promising careers in various fields where social interactions take place. Whether they will be used in the classroom in the future, in what role and for what tasks, is still an open question. While pilot studies often emphasize the great potential in education, the social robots commercially available today cannot yet meet the high expectations. However, given the rapid pace of development, it is worth exploring the characteristics and usefulness of social robots for different learning and teaching purposes. We conducted semi-structured interviews with preservice teachers in business education as potential users of robot-assisted education to evaluate for what classroom teaching tasks a social robot would be suitable. The interviews were analyzed drawing from a framework for teaching quality comprising classroom management, student support, and cognitive activation. It became clear that, when considering ethical concerns, prospective teachers see the robot primarily in a supporting and assisting role to increase both student motivation and the competence experience. The interviewed preservice teachers have the intention to use social robots in the future. However, they stress the importance of more reliable technology and a highly interactive and ready-to-use learning scenario.